‘Free Trade’ Descends on Biofuel Arena
On March 9th, GW Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed an agreement intended to boost research and production of ethanol and other biofuels (1):
Under a memo of understanding signed earlier in the day by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Brazil Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, the two nations pledged closer cooperation on researching alternative energy production, promoting alternative fuels in the region and developing industrywide standards and codes that could lay the groundwork for a global biofuels market. . . . . .The United States and Brazil expect to support feasibility studies and technical assistance in partnership with the Inter- American Development Bank, the United Nations Foundation, and the Organization of the American States.
"If we fund projects to produce biodiesel and ethanol in poorer countries, and then the richer countries buy biodiesel that's produced there, then we'll see that investments put into those countries have produced results, and even more important, generated jobs," President Lula said.
Have we heard this one before or what?
Soon after this agreement, the United Nations announced the formation of an international biofuels forum intended to “help countries with agricultural potential to become major suppliers of alternative fuels” and provide a forum for an "alternative fuels market". Through regular meetings, the forum is also expected to “help set industry standards, and eventually work toward the commodization of biofuels”.
I have a really bad feeling about this. The "first world" already does an excellent job exporting ecological problems to maintain ultra resource-intensive lifestyles. According to the January issue of National Geographic, 'market forces of globalization' are already destroying Brazil's rain forest. Brazil boasts the world's largest supplier of soy, the "King of Soy" Blairo Maggi, also governer of the state of Mato Grosso and leading Brazil in Amazon deforestation for the third straight year (Nat'l Geo, p. 61). It's expected that within the next 2 decades, 40% of the Amazon will be destroyed and a further 20% degraded. 
Biofuels have proven themselves a mixed blessing, dependent upon production scale and feedstock, among other factors. Massive-scale biofuel production, like that seen in Brazil and Malaysia, is dangerously lucrative: producers may profit immensely at the expense of the environment and local communities, and consumers may unwittingly purchase falsely labeled ‘green’ fuels that cause more harm than good. The argument could be made that the enormous profit potential of these fuels could boost revenue in areas desperately needing infrastructure and basic services. Yes, this argument has been made before as well, but I have a hard time believing that any of this money will get back to those that need it most.
After the initial agreement, the US defended its agenda against widespread criticism that it was as attempting to control Brazilian ethanol production (2):
The White House dismisses talk that the ethanol agreement between Bush and Silva is aimed at setting up an "OPEC of Ethanol" cartel led by Washington and Brasilia. Bush said he wants to work with Brazil, a pioneer in ethanol production for decades, to push the development of alternative fuels in Central America and the Caribbean. He and Silva also want to see standards set in the growing industry to help turn ethanol into an internationally traded commodity. "It's not about production-sharing, it's about encouraging development and encourage the Caribbean and Central American countries to get into the game," Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said.
Get into the game? If that means the game of supporting US oil consumption while enriching large agribusinesses, count me out.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of increasing biofuel production in lesser-developed countries, as long as it doesn’t come at the expense of local ecosystems. I’ll write more about this next week. However, trading biofuels as an international commodity ignores another problem: production. No country I’m aware of has the natural resources or capacity to manufacture enough biofuel for its domestic needs. Massive increases in Brazilian ethanol production may enrich some sectors of the economy, but may come at far greater ecological costs. Sugarcane produces more energy per unit of energy input when compared to corn-grain ethanol, but still falls short of meeting demand (3):
Brazil's method of producing ethanol is better than the American way, Silva suggested, noting that sugarcane-based ethanol is far cheaper to make than corn-based ethanol, and warm-weather climates like Brazil are the only places where sugar cane thrives. But neither country produces enough ethanol to meet growing domestic demand. . .
Why doesn't Brazil just keep the ethanol for themselves? Just about every country in the world spends enormous sums of money on oil imports each year, and perhaps those with a 'biofuel solution' should not be so eager to send it elsewhere (Please forgive the large quotes, but I found this really interesting. Please see the full article for more information). (4):
Yet an even more important question looms: Is it a good idea for a developing country like Brazil to export the biofuels it produces? Biofuels have helped Brazil displace oil imports and limit the price volatility they face in the petroleum market. Meanwhile, the domestic market for biofuels in Brazil is not close to being satisfied and energy advocates there understandably want to keep their own fuel at home. Beyond that, many Brazilians believe it would be unfair for the U.S. and European countries to place their ever-increasing fuel demand on Brazilian shoulders, instead of cutting wasteful energy consumption and global warming pollution in their own countries. . .
. . .The magnitude of [the] demand is staggering. If the U.S. moves to meet a substantial proportion of its fuel needs from biofuels—as the Bush administration is proposing—the pressure to import ethanol and other biofuels will mount rapidly, reaching quantities far beyond what Brazil currently produces. Providing biofuels to meet just 10 percent of current U.S. gasoline consumption would require multiplying Brazil’s already sizeable ethanol production five ties over. Expanding Brazil’s biofuel industry on such a large scale will create serious environmental and social problems. In Brazil, much of the expansion of ethanol production to meet U.S. and broader international demand is likely to take place in environmentally sensitive areas. One of these critical areas is the cerrado , the enormous Brazilian savannah, which is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world. And the environmental damage would not stop there if biodiesel demand is added to the mix. The spread of soy plantations to produce bio-based diesel fuel will exacerbate the intense pressure on the Amazon rainforest as the forest frontier is pushed back further and further. Not only will precious land and forests be lost as biofuels production grows, but the leveling of trees and grasslands will also release large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, further fueling global warming. As Brazilian organizations have pointed out, the benefits of expanded biofuels production in Brazil would flow mainly to agribusiness corporations, and the growth of large-scale plantations will undermine family-based agriculture and the country’s land-reform process. Meanwhile, throughout much of the ethanol industry, labor conditions are substandard. A recent study of the sugarcane industry in Brazil documented the serious health impacts of their methods of burning sugarcane fields during the harvest process, as well as the decline by half in workers’ incomes over the past 20 years under a quota-based pay system.
Biodiesel production is big in other parts of the world, too. Concerns over Malaysian forest-clearing palm-oil plantations have prompted some to call the fuel "Deforestation Diesel" (5):
In promoting biodiesel - as the EU, the British and US governments and thousands of environmental campaigners do - you might imagine that you are creating a market for old chip fat, or rapeseed oil, or oil from algae grown in desert ponds. In reality you are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth. Last week, the chairman of Malaysia's federal land development authority announced that he was about to build a new biodiesel plant. His was the ninth such decision in four months. Four new refineries are being built in Peninsula Malaysia, one in Sarawak and two in Rotterdam. Two foreign consortiums - one German, one American - are setting up rival plants in Singapore. All of them will be making biodiesel from the same source: oil from palm trees. . .
. . .In September, Friends of the Earth published a report about the impact of palm oil production. "Between 1985 and 2000," it found, "the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia". In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest have been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5 million in Indonesia.Almost all the remaining forest is at risk. Even the famous Tanjung Puting national park in Kalimantan is being ripped apart by oil planters. The orangutan is likely to become extinct in the wild. Sumatran rhinos, tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and thousands of other species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist. The forest fires which every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm growers. The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable oil field.
Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they've cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.
The idea of an international forum for biofuels, however, is not an entirely bad idea. International collaboration could impose environmental and social criteria for the projects it supports. Fostering development of local and sustainable biofuel production and technology sharing could have enormous benefits in many areas. I will touch upon one example next week.
We can only hope that US acts prudently, and involvement in this forum is not solely based on American interests.
Stay tuned for next Wednesday's post, which will discuss my recent trip to Honduras and thoughts on renewable energy production there.
Citations:
National Geographic Magazine:
Amazon, Forest to Farms: Battle to Stop the Land Grab
(1) Environment News Service:
U.S. and Brazil Sign Biofuels Cooperation Accord
(2) WCSH Portland:
Bush Makes Biofuel Deal With Brazil
(3) Biopact:
Rationale behind the International Biofuels Forum - a new energy paradigm
(4) TomPaine.com:
Burdening Brazil with Biofuels
(5) The Guardian:
The most destructive crop on earth is no solution to the energy crisis
Photo Credits: Whitehouse.gov, National Geographic Magazine (Photo by Alex Webb)
Tags: agriculture, Alternative Fuels, Amazon, Automobiles, Biodiesel, biofuels, brazil, Developing Nations, Environment, Ethanol, Food Production, International+Biofuels+Forum, Malaysia+Biodiesel, National and World News
- Uncategorized
March 21st, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Good Article, Clayton.
These are certainly concerns that need to be addressed. I personally think cellulosic ethanol and algae based biodiesel will be the future. It just makes sense; but supporting agriculture in America friendly countries like Brazil is a good thing as well (especially compared to the crop of America-haters who are invested in oil).
Ethanol and Biodiesel have other benefits from the environmental and ecological perspective too. An ethanol spill simply evaporates… unlike Oil which requires huge clean-up costs continues to do damage for decades. Then there’s CO2 sequestration… a pretty important topic these days. Plus I’m tired of paying our farmers NOT to grow various crops just to keep American agriculture viable. Let’s get them busy on fuel to make up the balance and spend those tax dollars on something better.
I think our fledgling ethanol industry still needs a bit of cover from the high import tariffs but I’d love to see the sugar tariff go the way of the dinosaur.
Anyway… just a few thoughts.
http://rationalenvironmentalist.com
March 21st, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Jimmy, thanks for the reply.
I would love to see algae biodiesel take off and I've heard some buzz about it here and there, but no solid news yet. Cellulosic ethanol also has a lot of potential with some very high energy returns for some feedstocks, but I think it deserves careful scrutiny.
Yes, I couldn't agree more that ethanol and biodiesel have clear environmental damages at their final stages - I hope to write about this more next week. You also mention CO2 sequestration, something that MIT just release a huge paper on (http://web.mit.edu/coal/). My take is this is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of, and unsustainably produced biofuels can certainly contribute to the 'need' for it. Biofuel production at its best right now is not CO2 neutral, and burning down the rainforest to produce more certainly wouldn't help.
I agree that the US should decrease its oil imports, but replacing them with another questionable fuel doesn't seem like a great idea. I think it would be more intelligent to reduce overall consumption. More and more I'm starting to believe that the future is going to transition from biofuels to plug-in hybrids, electric, and potentially hydrogen vehicles. Here is more food for thought, from Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute:
"There are alternatives to this grim scenario. A rise in auto fuel efficiency standards of 20 percent, phased in over the next decade would save as much oil as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest into ethanol.
One option that is gaining momentum is a shift to plug-in hybrids. Adding a second storage battery to a gas-electric hybrid car along with a plug-in capacity so that the batteries can be recharged at night allows most short-distance driving–daily commuting and grocery shopping, for example–to be done with electricity. If this shift were accompanied by investment in thousands of wind farms that could feed cheap electricity into the grid, then cars could run largely on electricity for the equivalent cost of $1 per gallon gasoline.
Encouragingly, three auto manufacturers–Toyota, Nissan, and GM–have announced plans to bring plug-in hybrid cars to market. Plug-In Partners, which is spearheading a national campaign to shift to plug-in hybrid cars already has 508 partners, including electrical utilities, corporations, state and city governments, and farm and environmental groups. Among its fast-growing list of partners are the American Public Power Association, Electric Power Research Institute, American Wind Energy Association, American Corn Growers Association, and the cities of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and Boston. Already a number of Partners have collectively pledged to purchase for their own fleets more than 8,000 plug-in hybrids as soon as they reach the market. "
(http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update65.htm)
Thanks for contributing.
Clayton
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:54 pm
I think plug-in hybrids are going to be the deal. Battery technology has evolved to the point that it’s starting to make sense. Much of our current electrical grid is coal-fired though so there’s a trade-off. Off peak electricity is already the cheapest way to travel once the hard cost of the batteries is covered though.
We’ll still need liquid fuel though, else give up performance or convienience; so the choice is clear: old biomass(oil) or new biomass(ethanol/biodiesel). From the economic, environmental and geopolitical perspective ethanol and biodiesel are becoming more and more attractive against oil.
Hydrogen is very cheap to produce but takes so much energy to compress into useful quantites that it’s probably not going to be viable in the near future (unless these guys or someone like them hit a long ball.
One thing is clear though. We will live in some interesting times. I would encourage you to be more optimistic… the world has been ‘doomed’ for generations and generations. Though it’s a time honored tradition to expect the worst; history teaches that things will continue to get better and better.
http://rationalenvironmentalist.com
March 22nd, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Clayton,
First of all, let me congratulate you on your article. It is clear that you are well-intentioned and have the correct issues in mind, namely environmental preservation and the wealth concentration/distribution problem. Nonetheless, I see there are several problems with your text, which are in fact a result of errors in your source texts. This is what I’ll address:
1) Brazil uses ethanol since 1929 and started a full fledged ethanol production program in the 1970’s. This is an important point because Lúcia Ortiz and David Waskow’s article (”Burdening Brazil with Biofuels”) fails, beginning with the text’s title, to address the fact that biofuels are not an imposition, but a national choice, on which Brazil we have been working for over 30 years. Moreover, President Lula has been speaking of exporting biofuels as an alternative to petroleum since 2003. It sounds more dramatic, though, to picture the issue as a foreign - especially if by a unanimously hated president such as George W. Bush. It is not the U.S. that is “burdening” Brazil to feed American gas-thirsty automobiles. It is the exact opposite: Brazil has been making efforts to export its ethanol as an important source of income for the country; Bush, internationally famous for his link to the petroleum industry (that has no interest in reducing its market share with the adoption of ethanol) conceded to a more rational alternative for three reasons: a) he is under intense attack for the U.S.’s previous environmental choices; b) the suppliers of petroleum are extremely instable regimes and are at the source of today’s most prominent international conflicts; c) ethanol is a renewable source of energy that can be supplied not only by Brazil, but practically all developing nations, offering them a new source of income and development (which, in turn, can bring into the international market countries that today import practically nothing, benefiting developed nations). The main point to bare in mind here, though, is that ethanol was NOT an imposition by the United States, but rather a choice of Brazil for which our country actively worked.
2) One may question, thus, if a sovereign decision of Brazil’s leadership is to Brazil’s and the world’s interest. Concerning this topics, five main arguments are used:
a) that ethanol destroys the Amazon forest;
b) that the adoption of biofuels can only come at the expense of food production;
c) that biofuels made of soybeans destroy the Amazon forest;
d) that ethanol and soybeans increase land and wealth concentration and eliminate small family farming properties.
The facts, however, show another reality:
a) Ethanol does not destroy the Amazon forest for the simple fact that it is not produced in the Amazon Forest. Here, those who spread this version do so either out of ignorance of Brazil’s geography – which is very common, as most people believe this country to be a single jungle from north to south – or as a result of pure dishonesty. The Amazon Forest’s soil and climate is incompatible with sugar cane production. Like all other countries, Brazil has its geographic specializations: more than 83% of Brazil’s sugar cane plantations are in the Center-South region, which comprises eleven states, among which São Paulo, where 50% of the area cultivated with cane and 60% of ethanol production happen; the north, where the Amazon forest is located, responds for merely 0.35% of the cane plantation, most of which used for domestic consumption. There are no ethanol processing plants in the North. It is not true, therefore, that ethanol contributes to deforestation.
b) Another myth is that the adoption of biofuels can only come at the expense of food production and will encourage more land occupation and deforestation. The Brazilian Government has repeatedly stated that there are still 90 million hectares of land that can be used for agriculture in its territory without the need to cut down a single tree. For example: it is a well-known fact that 200 million cattle spread over 220 million hectares of land in Brazil (1.1 hectare per cattle). The mere use of this land in a more productive manner, with the recovery of degraded areas for agriculture, would add some 50 million hectares to production. This is more than enough to triple the output of ethanol using today’s technology (expected advances not considered) and to enhance food production to meet domestic and international demand.
c) The claim that biofuels made of soybeans destroy the Amazon Forest is not true. Once again, reality is falsified. Here, the error comes from using the concept “Legal Amazon” as a synonym of “Amazon Forest” when, in reality, it is not. The “Legal Amazon” is a political and administrative concept; it refers to an area that covers more than 60% of Brazil and gathers eight different states: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondonia, Roraima, Tocantins, and half of the state of Maranhão. This area is composed of several biomas, not just the Amazon Forest. Almost half of Brazil’s cerrado (savannah) grasslands is located in the Legal Amazon region. According to Brazil’s National Food Supply Company (CONAB), show that in Brazil’s Equatorial Forest (whose are is 360 million hectares) some 183.700 hectares of soybeans were planted in 2006/2007, in the States of Roraima, Rondonia, Amazonas and Pará, an area that corresponds to 0.89% of the total cultivated area of Brazil, which is 20.580 million hectares. It is also important to note that, from 1990/1991 to 2006/2007, the production of grains in Brazil grew 108.29%, while the cultivated area expanded only 20.58%. This shows that it is the use of technology and other productivity enhancements that explain Brazil’s excellence in agriculture, not simply territorial expansion.
d) Ethanol and soybeans do not necessarily increase land and wealth concentration and eliminate small family farming properties. It is a fact that soybean production is highly mechanized, which means fewer jobs in the countryside for manual workers. However, unemployment rates in the areas where soy has expanded are among the smallest in Brazil, for this kind of crop generates other kinds of employment, of a more fixed and specialized nature: tractor conductors, mechanics, agriculture airplane pilots, veterinarians, agriculture specialists, and many other jobs in the services sector. More importantly, though, is that although monoculture depends on a unified cultivation and harvest of a crop, to reduce costs, it does not mean unified ownership of land. What we are currently seeing in Brazil is that large companies “rent” land of property owners and plant and harvest it. This means that the productive structure is completely different from the ownership structure. It is in this ownership structure that criticism should concentrate. If land ownership is desconcentrated through agrarian reform, it is possible to distribute the benefits of soybeans and sugar cane production among more people. The problem is not, therefore, the crop which is chosen, but rather the land concentration structure. When foreign organizations choose to emphasize on attacking Brazil’s soybean production instead of its land concentration, they clearly show on whose interests they are playing – those of subsidized American farmers who benefit from billionaire injections of money to produce ethanol from corn, as well as U.S. soybean producers. If land concentration were truly the issue, they would attack this problem, not the crop.
André
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Thank you immensely for your cogent, well-reasoned, researched and extremely intelligent reply. This is exactly the type of discussion I hoped would stem from my post.
-(1) In response to your first point, I concede that US involvement in this agreement is not a an imposition. Brazil committed to domestic biofuel production decades ago, and the only thing holding them back from increased trade are US ethanol tariffs. It's obvious that Brazil views the new agreement favorably and is acting on its own volition.
However, I still think the agreement could become a de facto imposition (definitionally, a burden) - you wrote that "It is not the U.S. that is "burdening" Brazil to feed American gas-thirsty automobiles", but if biofuel production proceeds unsustainbly at the expensive of Brazilian ecosystems the United States is still exporting environmental degredation to satisfy gratuitous fuel usage. To me, that's an imposition, but it will be up to Brazil to manage that.
-(2) Addressing your second argument, that increasing biofuel production doesn't necessarily cause more land occupation or destruction, is supported by two sources (that I'm aware of): the Brazilian Government and the Sugarcane Industry:
" Carvalho Macedo of Brazil's National Sugarcane Agro-Industry Union says wildlands will not have to be plowed under, because Brazil has 200 million acres (809,000 hectares) of pasturelands available to absorb sugarcane growth . . . "A simple calculation shows that expanding the Brazilian ethanol program by a factor of ten [in Brazil and other countries] . . . would supply enough ethanol to replace 10 percent of the gasoline used in the world." (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html)
Ok, perhaps. Or perhaps there is profit motive here and we aren't getting the whole story. Stating that pasture could be converted to sugarcane plantations assumes that the cattle industry won't continue to expand beyond increases in land-use efficiency. According to Nepstad et. al. 2006, a surge in deforestation took place between 2002-2004 due to growth of the cattle herd, which has expanded 11% annually since 1997. Soybeans and cattle, of course, are directly linked. Brazil is also the leading exporter of many other agroindustrial products, and expanding sugarcane cultivation could displace these crops into areas that require conversion (ie destruction of natural ecosystem).
Here are a few excerpts:
" . . .there is concern that higher-priced crops like sugarcane will displace soy and cattle farming in the Cerrado—driving those operations into the forests, which would have to be flattened to make way for the farms. "This displacement effect is not hypothetical," Lacerda added. "São Paulo used to be one of the most important cattle regions in Brazil. Now sugarcane has replaced it and pushed cattle to other places in the Cerrado and Amazon." " (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html)
" "The primary concern is that the biofuels push will directly or indirectly increase the loss to Brazil's remaining natural high biodiversity areas, such as the Cerrado," said John Buchanan, a senior director for the U.S.-based nonprofit Conservation International."
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html)
I don't know that it's safe to say that large areas of land aren't at risk for conversion. Additionally, I have heard arguments like this one before. Early in the biodiesel debate it was claimed that the United States could grown an enormous amount of feedstock on fallow or otherwise unused cropland. If that was true, what we did instead was start using a food crop (corn) to produce ethanol - illustrating the importance of profit potential as a variable in this equation.
-(3) Third, you stated that soybean production doesn't destroy the Amazon Forest. I have to argue this directly. However, let me first concede that we should be careful not to conflate sugarcane and soybean production. It's true that "[s]ugarcane is not well suited for rain forest climates. . .and the government is deliberately avoiding the expansion of sugarcane farms in the region"(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html). But don't forget the potential for pushing other crops into the Amazon, and also (Nepstad et. al. 2006):
" Rolling topography, rocky soils, and poor drainage may prevent cattle ranching and, in particular, soy farming from expanding into large portions of the Amazon Basin, but enormous areas of the region are vulnerable to conversion. On the basis of assessments of soil aptitude, climate, transportation infrastructure, and storage facilities, further expansion of soy and ranching could occupy an additional 1.4 to 1.7 million km2 in Brazil alone, equal to the entire cultivated cropland area of the United States (USDA-FAS 2003). Approximately one-fourth of this area is located in the Amazon. In a separate analysis that integrates a climate- and soil-sensitive model of soy yield and transportation costs, it is estimated that nearly 30% of the closed-canopy forests of the Amazon could support economically viable soy production once the BR-163 highway is paved (Diaz et al. 2006) "
Let's not be parochial about it either. There is more to Brazil than what "Amazon Forest" evokes - the savanna (Fearnside 2001):
" Much of the soybean planting so far has been in areas outside of tropical forest, such as cerrado (central Brazilian scrub savanna) and in various kinds of native Amazonian grasslands (campos) (Fig. 1). However, this vegetation harbours a high diversity that is often under-appreciated: Brazilian cerrado is believed to be the most diverse of the world’s savannas in terms of number of species (Klink et al. 1993; Myers et al. 2000). "
" The 740,100-square-mile (1.9-million-square-kilometer) Cerrado region is South America's largest savanna—one of the richest in the world, in terms of bird, reptile, fish, and insect species. According to a study published last year in the journal Conservation Biology, more than 50 percent of the Cerrado has already been transformed into pastureland, causing soil erosion, biodiversity loss, fragmentation, and the spread of nonnative grasses. "Most of the expansion required will affect the Cerrado ecosystem and the Amazon, which are already being destroyed because of cattle ranching and soybean farming," said Leonardo Lacerda of the Brazilian chapter of the international conservation group WWF. . . "
(http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070208-ethanol.html)
Clearly cattle, sugarcane, and soybeans have already taken a toll on the Cerrado, and their impacts may increase in the future. But to return to Amazonian deforestation, let me highlight a statement in the original post:
" Brazil boasts the world's largest supplier of soy, the "King of Soy" Blairo Maggi, also governer of the state of Mato Grosso and leading Brazil in Amazon deforestation for the third straight year (Nat'l Geo, p. 61). It's expected that within the next 2 decades, 40% of the Amazon will be destroyed and a further 20% degraded. "
If Blairo Maggi leads deforestation every year how can soy not affect the rainforest? Besides, it isn't just direct causation. Soybean production has extensive impacts, including the 'dragging effect' "through which other destructive activities (such as ranching and logging) are accelerated by infrastructure built for soybeans.":
" The impact of soybeans greatly exceeds the loss of natural areas directly converted to this land use because of the massive infrastructure development needed to provide transportation for harvest and entry of inputs. Other land uses, such as cattle pasture, occupy vast areas but do not carry the political weight needed to induce the government to build up to eight industrial waterways (Fig. 2), three railways, and an extensive network of highways (Fig. 3). . .
. . .The cost to the country of producing soybeans includes not only money invested in infrastructure and in the soy production system, but also the opportunity cost of lost environmental services caused by the full impact on natural ecosystems affected by the ‘dragging effect’, not just what is planted directly to soybeans. The ‘dragging effect’ completely escapes the current environmental impact statement and
project licensing process in Brazil (Fearnside 2001a). Costs include biodiversity loss when natural ecosystems are converted to soybeans, severe impacts to some of the transportation systems, soil erosion, health and environmental effects of agricultural chemicals, expulsion of population that formerly inhabited the areas used for soybeans, lack of production of food for local consumption because crop land used for subsistence agriculture is taken over by soybeans, and the opportunity cost of government funds devoted to subsidizing soybeans not being used for education, health and investment in activities that generate more employment than does mechanized cultivation of soy."
-(4) And that ties in with your fourth point, that ethanol and soybeans don't necessarily increase land and wealth concentration and eliminate small farms.
Sure, I agree they don't necessarily, but I think they will.
We both understand that mechanized agriculture decreases the number of jobs available, but I'm not sure what unemployment rates prove. If anything, they show that local inhabitants were displaced by imported workers (Fearnside 2001):
" The employment created often contributes nothing to alleviating local unemployment. For example, in Humaitá, Amazonas, skilled workers from the state of Rio GrandedoSul (Fig. 3) are brought in to operate the agricultural machinery (P.M. Fearnside, personal observation). . . .An obvious impact is the loss of natural ecosystems that are converted to soybeans. However, few soybean planters cut forest themselves; instead they buy already cleared land from small farmers who will then move to frontier areas and clear more (Carvalho 1999) When land is converted to mechanized crops like soybeans, most of the human population is expelled, and many move on to deforest elsewhere (Carvalho 1999). In Paraná, soybeans replaced small farmers growing maize, beans and other food crops, in addition to coffee. The rise of soybeans displaced 11 agricultural workers for every one finding employment in the new production system (Zockun 1980). In the 1970s, 2.5 million people left rural areas in Paraná; in the same period, the number of farms declined by 109 000 in Paraná and 300 000 in Rio Grande do Sul (Kaimowitz & Smith 2001). Although most small farmers who were displaced moved to urban areas, many migrated to frontier areas in Rondônia via the new World Bank-financed BR-364 Highway, where they were a key factor in one of the world’s most rapid explosions of tropical deforestation activity (Fearnside 1986b, 1987a). Remaining areas of cerrado have biodiversity importance that rivals that of equivalent areas of Amazonian forest (Dinerstein et al. 1995). "
" Agroindustrial expansion also brings threats to Amazon society. It displaces smallholder farmers and indigenous communities and the diversified farming systems that they have developed, which are responsible for a large portion of the food staples consumed in Brazil. This expansion brings with it land speculation and rural violence as multiple claims on properties lead tolandwars, particularly where land tenure is unclear (Schmink &Wood 1992; Simmons 2004). Laborers on remote ranches and farms can also become locked into debt peonage systems. An estimated 25,000 Brazilian laborers were trapped in debt peonage in 2004, tied to farms and ranches in remote regions by debts incurred with their employers (Gentile 2004). "
(Nepstad et. al. 2006)
Ultimately, my main point was the tendency for this type of development to concentrate profit in larger agribusiness, at the expense of local people and the environment (Fearnside 2001):
" Because soybeans require heavy capital investment in machinery, land preparation, and agricultural inputs, this crop is inherently the domain of wealthy agribusiness entrepreneurs rather than poor farmers. Extreme income concentration has been associated with soybeans wherever they have spread in Latin America (Kaimowitz et al. 1999). Income concentration and the associated political influence of powerful elites have negative repercussions throughout societies where these transformations are taking place. "
I agree with you that agrarian reform could help distribute benefits, and this may be where Brazil, America, and the rest of the international community can work together (Nepstad et. al. 2006):
" The conservation opportunities presented by Brazil’s agroindustrial growth are found in the growing pressure on soy farmers and cattle ranchers from finance institutions and purchasing companies, from the consumers and producer organizations in importing countries, and from Brazilian consumers, to reduce the negative ecological and social impacts of their production systems (Clay 2004). A second force motivating the adoption of environmental and social standards by soybean farmers and cattle ranchers is the concern expressed within importing countries—especially in the EU—that Brazilian soybeans and beef provoke Amazon deforestation, slave labor, and the risk of disease (Gentile 2005; Monbiot 2005). . .
. . .One way to compensate beef and soy producers for the costs of complying with environmental regulations is to establish a system of environmental certification recognized by markets in Brazil and abroad, providing greater market access and, perhaps, higher beef and soy prices. "
Again, let me say that I appreciate your well-reasoned arguments and interest in expanding this discussion. None of these issues can be comprehensively tackled in a blog post, but perhaps this will spur further investigation in at least a few readers =).
-Clayton
Citations:
DANIEL C. NEPSTAD, CLAUDIA M. STICKLER, ORIANA T. ALMEIDA (2006) Globalization of the Amazon Soy and Beef Industries: Opportunities for Conservation. Conservation Biology 20 (6), 1595–1603.
Fearnside, Philip M. 2001. Soybean cultivation as a threat to the environment in Brazil. Environmental Conservation 28 (1): 23–38
March 24th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Points well taken.
These are interesting times indeed. I am constantly amazed by new developments in renewable technology, ecological consciousness, and green movements.
There is plenty to be optimistic about!
March 26th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Thanks for your reply. As always in messages with a lot of content, I will have to research and give you a researched reply.
March 26th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Clayton,
I’ll have to answer in parts, as time allows me.
You state:
1) “(…) if biofuel production proceeds unsustainbly at the expensive of Brazilian ecosystems the United States is still exporting environmental degredation to satisfy gratuitous fuel usage. To me, that’s an imposition, but it will be up to Brazil to manage that.”
It is true that the standards of consumption in the United States are unsustainable and need to be rethought. Biofuels are but a part of the solution, which can not renounce to address the issue of diminishing fuel consuption as a whole. Still, if the US’s fuel consumption reduce by 30% and ethanol replaces petroleum by another 10%, there will already have been a substantial decrease in gas consumption that can not be ignored, nor the environmental and social benefits that this would bring.
The point still stands that what we are debating, however, is US “imposition” or not. I do not see foreign consumption demand –specially when the other side is more than willing to supply– as an imposition. Demand can always distort and define a country’s objectives; but it is also possible to reject foreign demand when contrary to national interests. Technically, therefore, we can not call demand an imposition; it can only be said to be an encouragement.
2) Brazil’s governmental Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (Institute of Applied Economic Research - http://www.ipea.gov.br), Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - http://www.ibge.gov.br), the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (www.agricultura.gov.br), the National Company of Food Supply (Conab - http://www.conab.gov.br), and even the National Institute of Space Research (www.inpe.br), which offers satellite photographs of Brazil’s deforestation, are all credible sources on the matter, even though governmental. I am not aware of any independent assessments on the issue.
You write: “Stating that pasture could be converted to sugarcane plantations assumes that the cattle industry won’t continue to expand beyond increases in land-use efficiency.”
The numbers I posted here, which are distributed by Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply, state that there are 90 million hectares of land that can still be used for agriculture in Brazil without the need to deforestate. Of these 90 million hectares, 50 million can become productive simply by using in a more efficient manner the 200 million hectares of land in which 220 million cattle feed. This is obviously not a difficult task: 1.1 hectare per cattle head is an extremely inefficient use of land. You don’t need to expand pasture land to compensate the expansion of other crops.
I’ll return to this later.
March 29th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Continuing this debate as time allows me….
The new minister of Agriculture, Reinhold Stephanes, who has just taken office, said in his statement that agriculture must grow from now on based on productivity gains and on the recovery of degraded lands, not the destruction of more forests.
I think it’s important that I say that there are two ways of destroying the forest: 1) by using chainsaws and 2) by using chains attached to tractors that topple trees.
The problem with chainsaws, the most used method, is that it leaves the roots of trees on the ground, which render the soil useless for agriculture (soybeans, cane or any other type of mechanized system). The soil can be prepared for harvesting, but it is too expensive. This is why people who use chainsaws generally burn everything around so as to clear the land and then plant grass seeds on the land so as to make pasture for cattle.
Chains attached to tractors are a more dangerous kind of deforestation, which demands a lot of capital, that consists of attaching chains to a tractor on one side and to another tractor on the other and dragging the trees to the ground. With this method, trees are removed with their roots, which makes the land free to use in agriculture. After the trees are brought down, they are cut in pieces with a chainsaw. Once again, I will repeat to you: this method is less used because it requires capital.
I don’t know why I am telling you this. I guess it is to say that it is not so easy to practice agriculture in the Amazon. What is destroying the forest is, in order of importance: 1) logging; 2) cattle ranching which occupies the areas cleared by logging.
As I said in my first message, only 0.98% of Brazil’s soy is produced in the Amazon region, and 0.35% of Brazil’s sugar cane plantation area is in the northern region (where the Amazon forest is).
March 29th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Several authors, geographers and analysists have said lately that Brazil’s fronteir expansion has ended. Or, to use a more correct term: “Brazil is exporting its fronteir”. Why exporting? Because almost all the Amazon forest has become reserves or is economically inviable to explore. The State of Acre, for example, is almost entirely an indian reservation. The only places where land expansion is still happening is in the states of Rondônia and Roraima. However, the tendency is already clearly set: Brazilian farmers are finding cheaper land, more easily used, in neighboring countries. There are over 500 thousand Brazilians in Paraguay, a country of 3 million people; more than 90% of Bolivia’s soy production is made by Brazilians.
All serious analysists will tell you that Brazil’s land expansion era is ending. It’s not entirely over, but it is ending.